“Nelly, let’s camp out up in the cabin for our last week, all by ourselves!”

Edith’s face fell, and so, for that matter, did the Bride’s.  Edith said, “By yourselves?  Not Johnny and me, too?” And Eleanor said, “At night? Oh, Maurice!”

“It will be beautiful,” he said; “there’ll be a moon next week, and we’ll sit up there and look down into the valley, and see the treetops lift up out of the mist—­like islands from the foam of ’faerylands forlorn’!  You’ll love it.”

“I’m crazy about camping,” said Edith, eagerly;—­and waited for an invitation, which was not forthcoming.  Instead, Maurice, talking his plans over with her, made it quite clear that her room was better than her company.  It was Edith’s first experience in being left out, and it sobered her a little; but she swallowed the affront with her usual good sense: 

“I guess he likes Eleanor more ’an me, so, ’course, it’s nice to be by himself with her.”

The prospect of being “by themselves” for a week was deeply moving to Maurice.  And even Eleanor, though she quaked at the idea of spiders or thunderstorms, thought of the passion of it with a thrill.  “We’ll be all alone!” she said to herself.

The morning that they started gypsying, everything was very impatient and delightful.  The packing, the rolling up of blankets, the stowing of cooking utensils, the consulting of food lists to make sure nothing was being forgotten—­all meant much tearing about and bossing; then came the loading the stuff into the light wagon, which, with old Lion, Mr. Houghton had offered to convey the campers (and a temporary Edith) up to the top of the mountain.  Edith was, of course, frankly envious, but accepted the privilege of even a day in camp with humble gratitude.

“Rover and Johnny and I will come up pretty often, even if it’s only for an hour, because Eleanor must not hurt her hands by washing dishes,” she said, earnestly (still fishing for an invitation).

But Maurice only agreed, as earnestly:  “No!  Imagine Eleanor washing dishes!  But I don’t want you to stay all night, Buster,” he told her, candidly; then he paused in his work, flung up his arms with a great breath of joyousness.  “Great Scott!” he said.  “I don’t see why gypsies ever die!”

Edith felt an answering throb of ecstasy.  “Oh, Maurice, I wish you and I were gypsies!” she said.  She did not in the least resent his candor as to her presence during the week of camping; though just before they started her feelings really were a little hurt:  it happened that in trying to help Eleanor pack, she was close enough to her to notice a thread on her hair; instantly, she put out a friendly and officious thumb and finger to remove it—­at which Eleanor winced, and said, “Ouch!”

“I thought it was a white thread,” Edith explained, abashed.

Eleanor said, sharply, “Please don’t touch my hair!” which conveyed nothing to Edith except that the Bride—­who instantly ran up to her room—­“was mad.”  When she came back (the “thread” having disappeared) Edith was full of apologies.